Your brain physically rewires its internal GPS the exact second you stop exploring and start chasing a specific target.
April 10, 2026
Original Paper
Active Pursuit Gates Egocentric Coding in the Retrosplenial Cortex
SSRN · 6531523
The Takeaway
We don't just use one static map to navigate the world. When we switch into 'pursuit mode,' specific neurons in our brain stop mapping the landscape and start obsessively tracking the distance and angle to whatever we are hunting.
From the abstract
Spatial navigation is commonly studied in static environments, but adaptive behavior frequently hinges on tracking moving goals in real time. Active pursuit exemplifies this challenge: it is an inherently egocentric spatial behavior requiring continuous localization of a moving target, yet the neural coding schemes supporting it remain poorly understood. We therefore performed Neuropixels recordings in the retrosplenial cortex (RSC), a hub for egocentric-to-allocentric reference frame transforma